My Life With Comic Books: Part # 65

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 65

I arrived at my store early on the Saturday that I was going to give away the five hundred free tickets to our private showing of the new Batman movie. My store doesn’t open until ten o’clock but I knew that I wanted to be there around seven o’clock to be sure that the store was organized enough in case there was a good sized crowd of people. I had no idea what to expect. By seven o’clock there were about one hundred people waiting in a line for my store to open! The first person had arrived at four o’clock in the morning! Everyone seemed to be enjoying passing the time by talking about comic books and the excitement and anticipation about the Batman movie was growing. I explained to the people in line that I couldn’t begin to give the tickets away until the store opened at ten o’clock but nobody seemed to mind waiting.

By the time that my employee, Pat Donley, got to the store we had about three hundred people waiting in line. My wife, Mal, and my two children, Adam and Cassandra, arrived at just about ten o’clock and by that time we had almost five hundred people in line.

I was giving the tickets away as a “Thank You” for my loyal customers, friends, and Worcester residents, so making a lot of money in return was not my intention. As it turned out though, my “gift” was returned to me in huge sales. I thought that most of the people in line would come into the store to get their free ticket and then they’d leave but I was wrong. Most of the people stayed and shopped. Many bought Batman related merchandise but by the end of the day I was surprised to see that we had sold a bunch of every product line that we carried. It was a fun-filled day for me at the store. Almost every customer was in a good mood and the excitement was building for next week’s special screening of Batman. Our small store was jam-packed with so many people that we had to have some customers wait outside until there was room for them to enter. After eight hours of “ringing the cash register” my pointer finger was sore. (For some reason, cash register manufacturers put a small raised bump on the #5 key and it actually made my finger hurt because of the heavy use!) But I certainly wasn’t going to complain about this situation.

The next Saturday was the big day. Pat Donley stayed at the store because we were open for business at the same time that we would be showing the movie. I arrived at the downtown Showcase Cinema location and paced the floor while I waited for the courier to bring the film from the other Showcase theater. In the meantime I greeted many of my customers as they entered the lobby and directed them to our reserved theater. My mother and father sat with Mal, but we had decided that our two children were too young to see this movie. Adam wasn’t happy with us but Mal and I were concerned about the dark, evil, somber tone of the movie at that time in his young life. He was only ten years old. He’d get to see it a couple of years later. Cassandra was only five years old and she didn’t seem to mind missing this movie.

The courier finally showed up fifteen minutes before “show-time” and we actually started the movie right on time. The crowd loved the movie. They cheered and clapped when Batman first appeared on-screen. The movie was visually exciting and the soundtrack was dynamic. Tim Burton did an amazing job of entertaining both young and old. He even made it seem okay that Michael Keaton was Batman. My father said it reminded him of the old-time movie serials and the teen-agers thought it was cool. It was definitely a success. It was a lot of fun to see this movie with just a room full of friends. As the film ended I made sure I was at the exit of the theater to thank each and every person for attending our showing. I also invited everyone to comeback to my store for a “Batman party” where we had a huge Batman cake, soda, and lots of snacks.

I was the last person to leave the theater and by the time I got back to my store the whole store was packed with people. Everyone seemed to have a fun time and my store had a record-breaking sales day. This special movie showing cost me a few thousand dollars but the huge sales on both Saturdays, the great stories in the local newspapers about our store, and the goodwill generated by this event made it successful beyond my expectations.

Next Chapter: Hank Stolz and the Same Bat Channel comic shop.

My Life With Comic Books: Part # 64

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 64

I had planned carefully for months for the big screen debut of the Batman movie. Everything was under control. Well, maybe not. Three weeks before the special screening, the Showcase Cinema called and told me they weren’t sure if the Batman movie would be playing in the downtown Worcester theater. They had opened a theater in another section of town and wanted to have the film there instead of downtown. I explained that I had completed almost all of my promotional work for the originally agreed upon location and the special tickets had already been printed. They didn’t care.

It was interesting to me that most of the theater managers had so little confidence in this movie. Tim Burton had directed two other movies that were only minor hits but there was a lot of good “buzz” on this movie within the comic book industry. A few small companies had managed to buy the licensing rights to produce toys based on the movie and a few other companies started making t-shirts featuring Batman and the Joker that were actually based on the comic book series instead of the feature film. We bought and sold hundreds of these t-shirts in the months before the movie’s release. As it got closer to the actual opening day of the film the serious comic book collectors were buying almost anything with Batman on it.

The comic book series had been selling poorly for a few years. Sales had slipped in the United States to around 100,000 copies per month of the Batman comic book. Because of the collector interest in this soon-to-be-released movie, sales of the Batman comic book soared to almost 500,000 per month! Back issues of the comic book series from the 1960’s and 1970’s were flying out of our store and our stock was rapidly dwindling. Comic book stores all around the country were reporting huge increases in the sales of Batman related merchandise because none of the big department stores had enough confidence in the movie to order large quantities of the toys and t-shirts. Our little comic book industry basically had an exclusive with this film.

I knew that I’d have to convince the Showcase Cinema management that it was essential to play the Batman movie in the downtown theater as we had contracted for the success of this event. I finally went back to Carol Boole, my inside contact of the company that was in charge of this release, and begged her to try to fix this mess. Two weeks before the film was to be shown, she worked out a plan with the Showcase manager. The Batman movie would premiere at the other location and first thing the next morning they’d have a courier bring the film to the downtown location in time for our special screening. Then the courier would rush the film back to the other theater in time for the noon show. I had no choice but to believe that this would actually work.

Two Saturdays before the screening I was going to give away the five hundred free tickets. The night before the ticket give-away, I stayed late to clean the store and have everything organized for the morning. I didn’t have any idea what to expect. Would there be very many people interested in waiting in a line for a free ticket to a movie that many thought might be a “bomb?”

Next chapter: Batmania

My Life With Comic Books: Part # 63

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 63

It was early 1989, and it was getting closer to the release date of the big-budget Batman movie. I had been unable to convince the company that was handling the distribution of the film to the Massachusetts area to let me organize a big Worcester premiere. I was explaining my predicament to my friend, Linda Weatherbee, and she told me that her sister, Carol, worked at that company! I now had an inside contact person that I may be able to work with.

Carol was smart enough to realize that Worcester was an important city for movies because of its large population and she was willing to work with me to make the release of the Batman movie a special event. She wasn’t able to convince the company to allow us to have a special premiere but she allowed us to have a private screening the morning after the movie opened. I purchased five hundred tickets at a slightly reduced price from the Showcase Cinema in downtown Worcester for a 10:00AM show. I decided to give these tickets away (for free) so that this event would be run as a “thank you” for my customers. I wanted to somehow let them know that I appreciated all of the business they had given me for the past nine years and this seemed like an interesting way to do it. There were some potential problems though. I couldn’t really purchase any more tickets because none of the theaters held more than five hundred people. I had over a thousand regular customers and their family members that I wanted to give these tickets to. I didn’t want to make the difficult decision of who wouldn’t get the free tickets so I came up with a plan that would be as fair as possible. I’d give one ticket to each of the first five hundred people who came into my store on a Saturday two weeks before our special presentation. This seemed like a good, fair plan.

I designed a large illustrated ticket with the Bat-Symbol on it and had them sequentially numbered from #1-#500. I kept the first six of the tickets for my wife, my Mom and Dad, myself, and some of my employees. I wrote some press releases to send to local radio stations and newspapers. I began “hyping” the event to my regular customers when they came into the store. Everything was under control and the movie wasn’t going to be released for another three months!

Next chapter: What could possibly go wrong?

My Life With Comic Books: Part # 62

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 62

In early 1988 we were beginning to hear more serious rumors about a big-budget feature film that Warner Brothers was making of Batman. We were excited about the many possibilities that this could bring if the movie was any good. Our comic book industry could get much needed national attention in the media and people might be interested in reading comic books again. Although my business was growing each year our main customer base was made up of serious collectors and it would have been great to get more of the “general public” interested in going into comic book specialty stores like mine.

Unfortunately, the early rumors we were hearing were not good. A comic book writer wasn’t writing the movie. The movie was going to be directed by Tim Burton who was primarily known for directing Pee Wee Herman’s movie “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” and “Beetlejuice” starring Michael Keaton. Both of these were pretty good movies but they were comedies and, as fans, we wanted a serious Batman movie. Then we began hearing rumors that Michael Keaton was being considered for the role of Batman! Horrors! He’s short, balding, has no chin, and his body isn’t in great shape. How could Tim Burton possibly make him into a serious and believable Batman?

The answer became obvious as publicity photographs were released. Since Michael Keaton wasn’t a well-built “muscleman” they’d have to make the costume look the part. They built a rubber costume that made it appear as if Michael Keaton could actually be The Batman. He didn’t look like the Bruce Wayne that we’ve all come to know from the comic books or the Adam West television show but at least he’d look like a superhero when he was in the costume.

When I was satisfied that the movie would at least be visually interesting, I decided to try to put together a project to make this movie a special event for my customers. I called the Boston office of National Amusements (the company that distributed the films to the local theaters) and tried to arrange it so Worcester would be able to have a big premiere on the first night of the movie’s release. I tried to assure them that I would be able to generate a lot of good radio and newspaper publicity for the movie. They explained that although Worcester was the second largest city in all of New England, they were more interested in premiering the movie in Boston. I tried to get them to agree release it simultaneously in Boston and Worcester but they just didn’t think Worcester was an important market for them. I was frustrated because I wanted to be involved in this big-budget movie premiere. There hadn’t been a good major comic book related movie since the Christopher Reeve Superman movie from the 1970’s and I was now reading really good things about this upcoming Batman movie.

Next chapter: A sign of intelligent life in Boston.

My Life With Comic Books: Part # 5

A brief introduction:
My name is Paul Howley, owner of the Eisner Award winning pop culture collector’s store known as “ That’s Entertainment ” in Worcester, Massachusetts. My store has been around for over twenty years and it’s been a long and interesting combination of events and people that have brought my store to its current place. I am not a talented writer, so please try to overlook my lack of writing ability. It is not my intent to boast or brag about my store or my life…I just want to tell you my story.

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part Five


In 1973 my wife, Mal, and I went to our first comic book “convention” at The Statler Hotel in Boston. The first comic book dealer I met was Donald Phelps. He had a nice group of comic books from the 1940’s including a straight run of Batman issues #20-35, all in very fine-near mint condition. I immediately spent my entire weeks paycheck at his booth. I had become interested in Batman in 1959 when a family friend gave me my very first comic book…a Batman comic. In 1966, the Batman TV show starring Adam West premiered. It was one of my favorite TV shows of the 1960’s. I remember watching it with my Dad and getting mad at him because he was laughing at how silly it was. But to me (at 11 years old) this was a serious TV show! Batman was really in danger. Oh, and what a great colorful cast of villains! The Joker, The Penguin, The Riddler, Catwoman…and eventually Batgirl! But, alas, the show only lasted three years. I had to be satisfied buying the new issues of Batman comics.

Then, in 1971, my Mom bought me a copy of the hardcover book “ Batman from the 1930’s to the 70’s”. This thick book was a collection of many of Batman’s best adventures from (duh) the 1930’s to the 70’s. This cool book introduced me to a lot of the early appearances of characters from “the Batman Family” like Batwoman, Bat-Mite, Ace The Bat-hound and dozens more. I had never bought a really old Batman comic book before, and now, at my first comic book convention I’ve bought a bunch from the 1940’s! I’m sure it probably worried Mal a little bit. Usually we were very careful with our money. As a matter of fact, we were thinking about saving money for a house and here I was blowing my paycheck on comics! But she knew I was getting a thrill out of buying these comics. She quickly suggested that it might be a good idea if I thought about selling some of comic books that I no longer wanted in order to pay for these expensive new additions to my collection.

Also at this convention was a young man named Will Murray. Will Murray would go on to eventually be recognized as an expert on Doc Savage and The Shadow and many years later, he’d take over running the monthly Boston comic book conventions. Will was sharing a table with a friend of his to reduce his expenses. Both of these guys were so friendly and willing to spend time talking to us about comic books. They told us that there was a long waiting list to rent booth space at this small comic book convention. If I really wanted to get involved in the buying and selling they would be willing to rent me one third of their 8-foot-long table for about $10.00. It seemed like a good idea to us, so we committed to setting up at the next show. The shows were usually once every three months, so I had plenty of time to sort through my comics to pull out the ones I’d be willing to part with. I really didn’t want to sell any. I liked them all. But if it made it okay with Mal for me to spend our hard earned money on old comics, then I’d do it. I had no price guide (The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide was around, but I had not discovered it yet) so I used some of the prices I’d seen in other dealers advertisements to determine my selling price. I had no plastic bags to protect my comics, so I lightly wrote the price on the back cover of each book. This was fairly standard practice in the early days of comic book selling. Occasionally you’d run into the dumb comic seller who’d use a pen or a marker to write the price on the back. What idiots!

Our first show was amazing. It didn’t take long for some of the other dealers to realize that I was a beginner in the business. They swarmed around our table and bought up many of the comics that we had under-priced. We didn’t care. It gave me the extra money I wanted to buy more comic books without draining our “house-buying fund.” These early conventions were full of interesting people. The young guys who eventually became Newbury Comics were there. George Suarez of New England Comics got his start at the early Boston shows. Bill Cole was there. Ron Johnson (one of the true gentlemen of the comic business) was there. Joe Carroll…the ultimate friendly comic book fan was a regular. Gerard would sometimes show up dressed as Captain Marvel Junior, but he was really a great guy. Monte was always there selling all kinds of magazines and comics. There was a hippie-type guy named Desi selling collectable comics and toys who was gruff on the surface but who was really one of the kindest guys there. There were also two older men (brothers) that for some reason were called “The Fruit Brothers”. Maybe their “real” job was selling fruit. They would yell and scream at each other at various times during each convention. They were colorful characters.

Everyone who sold comics in those days had regular “normal” jobs also. Comic book selling was just a supplement to our incomes back then. It was much more fun to be selling comic books when you were not concerned about employees, payroll, rent, and other major expenses that can overwhelm you when you are depending on the income from comic book selling. I looked forward to selling at the Boston shows and Mal was always there to help, even though she didn’t really like comic books. She enjoyed it because I enjoyed it.

After we had been married for about six months, with a short-term loan from my parents, Mal and I bought our first house in Northboro, Massachusetts. It was a small 2-bedroom home on a cute one-half acre lot, with no basement. The extra bedroom immediately became the comic book room. We were only 19 years old and we looked like we were 13 years old. Neighbors would call us “the little people” and deliverymen would ask us if our parents were home. We’d reply, “We don’t know…they don’t live here.” Wiseguys, huh?

When we had lived in this house for about six months, we noticed that the real estate market was getting pretty hot. We had paid $23,000.00 for our house and we guessed that we could probably sell it for about $30,000.00. We called a realtor we knew and listed it for sale for $32,000.00. The house was sold by the first weekend for full price. After the sales commission, we made almost $8,000.00 profit. Keep in mind, in 1974, that was about the annual pay for an unskilled worker like me. I was now making money selling our own real estate, working at the cash register company, and selling comic books. I was an amateur entrepreneur.

Next column: We build a house and then quit the rat race.

My Life With Comics: Part #1

A brief introduction:
My name is Paul Howley, owner of the Eisner Award winning pop culture collector’s store known as “ That’s Entertainment ” in Worcester, Massachusetts. My store has been around for over twenty years and it’s been a long and interesting combination of events and people that have brought my store to its current place. I am not a talented writer, so please try to overlook my lack of writing ability. It is not my intent to boast or brag about my store or my life…I just want to tell you my story.

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS:THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP: Part One

I was born in 1955 and my comic book life began in 1959 when an old friend of the family gave me my first comic book. It was a “Batman” comic! I don’t remember which issue it was, but it started my life long interest (some might say obsession) in comic books. I remember walking from my home in Belmont, Massachusetts to the local “spa” to plunk down my ten cents for “Felix The Cat”, “Hot Stuff The Little Devil”, “Casper”, “Little Lotta”, “Little Dot”, “Dick Tracy”, and the occasional superhero comic. By 1961 I had amassed a collection of almost 500 comic books. In 1961, that was a huge collection! I only knew of one other kid that had a larger collection and he was nicknamed “The Comic King”. (years later, I bought his comic book collection!) I would buy as many comic books as I could afford. Condition didn’t matter to me…at one local variety store they sold comics with the covers torn off for only five cents each so I bought a bagful of early Marvel comics and cool “Batman” and “Superman” related titles every chance I got. Each week on the way home from church I would buy a comic, a soda, and a candy bar with the quarter my father would give and still have a nickel left over! You see, comics were still ten cents and soda and candy bars were five cents each in 1961. In 1961, comic books were seemingly sold everywhere…supermarkets, drugstores, corner variety stores, and of course, at local newsstands. But in the early 1960’s my family moved from the big city of Newton, Massachusetts out to the country town of Bolton, Massachusetts. I went from finding comics everywhere to a town that had no comic books. This little town didn’t even have a store of any kind. The center of the town had a blinking yellow traffic light and that’s all. I had to be content with rereading my existing comic books for excitement. At some point in 1964 I was allowed to ride my bicycle about two miles away to a nearby town that had two stores with small selections of comic books for sale, but now comics were twelve cents each and neither store sold comics without the covers for five cents! What was I going to do? I couldn’t afford to spend twelve cents each for my comic book “fix”! I decided to start asking my school friends to sell me their old comic books and most of them were thrilled to be able to get some cash for the comics they no longer wanted. By 1965 my collection had doubled in size to over 1000 comics. But it wasn’t long before my friends were out of comics to sell to me. What was I going to do now?

I began writing and drawing my own comic books featuring a superhero known as “Insect Man” and I would pass them around to my classmates. A group of kids would play superheroes during recess and I was “Insect Man”. A buddy was “The Masked Mosquito” and some kids were content to be villains. I included them all in the “Insect Man” comic books.

For my birthday, my Dad drove me all the way to the “big” city of Marlboro Massachusetts to an actual newsstand called “ Delaney’s” and he gave me two dollars to buy any comic books I wanted! At twelve cents each, this was a dream come true! This newsstand was amazing to me as a young kid…there was an entire magazine rack filled with comic books! Keep in mind, this was before comic book specialty shops…today’s collectors are fortunate to be able to get every comic book they want in one location! I bought some of my favorite titles and some comics that I had never tried before. It was a super birthday gift, but soon I was looking for more comics to read.

Then I discovered something that profoundly changed my comic book life. I saw a classified advertisement in a comic book from a man who had “back issues” of comic books available for sale. I sent off my twenty-five cents for his catalog of comic books and was eagerly anticipating being able to buy lots of old issues for a penny or two each. Imagine my shock when I got the catalog and saw that this guy was charging higher than the original cover price for old comics! The cheapest comic book for sale in his catalog was fifty cents! Some of the old comic from the 1930’s and 1940’s were as high as $90.00 for a single comic book! My father thought the decimal points must have been in the wrong place…can you imagine Batman #1 from 1939 was almost $60.00? Marvel Comics #1 was $90.00…Action Comics #1 was $70.00…Spider-Man #1 was $6.00…Fantastic Four #1 was $10.00…This was outrageous! This catalog guy must be crazy to think that people would pay that kind of money for old worthless comic books. So I sent away for a catalog from a different comic book dealer. Hmmmmm…he’s charging big money too! Maybe there are other people in the world who want these comics and are willing to pay a premium to get them. It took a little convincing, but my father eventually allowed me to start buying older comics from these dealers. I bought lots of early Marvel comics including Daredevil #1, X-Men #1, Avengers #1, early Fantastic Four, early Spider-Man, etc, but my father “drew the line” when I wanted to send the $60.00 for Batman #1. “That was ridiculous,” my Dad told me. (many years later I ended up paying $250.00 for a Batman #1)

In 1966 I went to the big city of Worcester, Massachusetts with a friend because we heard that there was a bookstore that also bought and sold old comic books. So I packed up some of my 1950’s DC comics and brought them to this bookstore. The owner gave me five cents each in trade towards Marvel comics from 1964-1966 at 50 cents each. Looking back, it wasn’t a very good deal, but it helped me fill in some of the issues I was missing in my collection of Marvel’s.

When I was eleven years old I got an idea…I wrote directly to Marvel Comics and asked them if they had any back issues available for sale. To my delight, they sent me a list of comic books available …actually it was stranger than that…the list was actually a list of the comic books that were NOT available. They said that any comic book they had published since 1961 that was not on this list could be purchased for twelve cents each plus a small postage fee. I sent them as much money as I could to fill in lots of missing issues in my Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Avengers, Tales to Astonish, and Tales of Suspense collections. Within a year or two, Marvel discontinued this service.

I continued to ride my bike to the next town to buy my regular weekly comic books but I was frequently disappointed to find out that I missed the newest issue of Spider-Man or Fantastic Four. I asked the storeowner what I needed to do to be sure that I wouldn’t miss another issue. He told me that the new comic and magazine shipments were delivered every Tuesday morning. If I wanted to be sure to get the comics I wanted I would have to be at his store early Tuesday morning. Since I had to be in school, I suggested to him that if he left the wire-bound bundle of comic books and magazines behind his counter, I would come there on Tuesday after school, would check his invoice, and neatly display his comics and magazines on the rack for him, saving him some time. This would let me have the first pick of the comic books I wanted. He thought it was a great idea. For the next four years I did this for him and quite a few times I was able to buy the one copy of a comic book that the store got. This storeowner always treated me with respect and kindness even though I was just a young kid with only a few dollars to spend each week. This kindness and respect would influence my business decisions in later years.

Next column: My comic buying becomes an addiction.